Talls helping smalls: Mentoring program starts in January in Aberdeen

MIDLAND

An Aberdeen native is bringing his mentoring experience to his hometown to lead a new program for youth.

Aberdeen's new mentoring program, Sidekicks, will begin in January. Nathan Gellhaus, who recently moved back to the Hub City, is the program's director.

Sidekicks has a mentor center on the second floor of the Aberdeen Recreation and Cultural Center.

Gellhaus said a national study from the early 1990s found that kids who had mentors were 46 percent less likely to begin using drugs, 27 percent less likely to use alcohol, 52 percent less likely to skip school and 33 percent less likely to hit someone than kids in the study who did not have mentors.

Gellhaus knows firsthand the difference a mentor can make in a child's life. He was involved with the national Big Brothers Big Sisters organization in Las Cruces, N.M., where he mentored a young man named Austin. Gellhaus said he was totally embraced by the boy's family, and he and Austin stay in touch.

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"We had a special bond," he said.

Aberdeen's mentoring program, open to all kids age 8-16, will be similar to the Big Brothers Big Sisters program. An adult, or "tall," will be matched as friends with a child, or "small," and they will do regular activities together.

One of the keys to success will be matching a "tall" and "small" based on personality and interest through interviews, said retired school counselor Barb Cutler, who was involved with the program's planning.

Though talls and smalls will be matched individually, a two-by-two concept will be used, where two mentors and two mentees will do activities together, Cutler and Gellhaus said. Or, mentors and mentees can meet at the Aberdeen Family YMCA or at the Sidekicks center.

Mentors will undergo background checks, must be 18 and be able to commit to at least one year of mentoring a child, they said. People who can't make the commitment but want to help can still get involved. Volunteers are needed in other ways, including to staff the center, they said.

The organization is self-supported financially through donations, grants and other fundraising sources, Gellhaus and Cutler said. But it is a department of Aberdeen Family YMCA, which offers in-kind donations such as access to its facility for mentor-mentee activities. Sidekicks' advisory board is made up of representatives from businesses, schools, churches, government and other organizations.

The Sidekicks program's mascot is a little boy, whom Gellhaus wants to name Austin.

Gellhaus said he might become a tall to another smallin Aberdeen - he's gotten Austin's permission.